BMHS duo more than grand scorers

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Simmons became just the seventh member of the Senators boys basketball program to reach the 1,000-point plateau when his 10-foot jumper hit nothing but net in the fourth quarter of Monday night's game at Trinity Catholic. He's the first McMahon player to reach the milestone since Ottis Lewis III went over the 1,000-point mark in 2004.

I was lucky enough to be covering both games in which the duo scored their 1,000th point. It's easy to see that Lewis and Simmons are cut from the same cloth because they worked hard for all the accolades they received.

From what I can recall, Lewis was playing in a state tournament game at Bristol Central and he went over 1,000 points with a basket in the paint with nine seconds remaining in the third quarter. With such a large, raucous and partisan crowd on hand, and with current UConn football standout D.J. Hernandez also reaching 1,000 points earlier in the game, there was some confusion as to whether Lewis had gone over the 1,000-point mark yet it was confirmed afterward that he had done it.

There was no such confusion regarding Simmons. The game was stopped with 5:25 on the clock in the fourth quarter to acknowledge the accomplishment and Simmons was given a nice round of applause from the McMahon and Trinity fans in attendance.

And it just shows the type of person Simmons is when he handed the game ball to his father and said that was the highlight of the evening for him.

McMahon coach Mo Tomlin had such high praise for Simmons after the game that it could take up this entire space. Tomlin was an assistant coach at McMahon when Lewis was in the fold and he had nothing bit good things to say about Lewis as well and still keeps in touch with him.

Simmons and Lewis went about their jobs in different ways at different positions yet still yielded the same result.

Lewis was a low-post threat, a 6-foot-6 center who would do all the dirty work in the paint. Simmons is a 5-foot-8 guard who can shoot, run the floor and cut to the basket.

Yet the one common trait they shared is hard work, on the court and in the classroom. Tomlin said they each were three-year starters, they worked incredibly hard in the offseason to become better basketball players and they didn't slouch in the classroom -- both being solid B students.

It all paid off for Lewis, who is making a name for himself on the gridiron rather than the basketball court because he's a top-notch wide receiver at Hofstra University. And Simmons seems headed down the right path as well and the sky's the limit for the senior standout.

The most impressive thing to Tomlin has been seeing this duo grow as young men and become strong role models with great families behind them. And when Simmons came to McMahon, he looked up to Lewis and now all the younger players at McMahon look up to Simmons, so it's come full circle.

Will there be a young player at McMahon looking to follow in the footsteps of Simmons and Lewis? Only time will tell but one thing's for sure that anyone would be proud to emulate a dynamic 1,000-point scoring duo like Simmons and Lewis.

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